October 30th, 2014

I have been sick since Saturday, but it's only yesterday and today that I
would admit to it. By Tuesday afternoon my fever spiked and I couldn't
drive and when I looked at faces I swear I saw through skin to bone as
if it were all made of glass and I felt fear and giddiness, a pool of self
and also an unconquorable stone. So, Thursday I sat by the fire burning
paper bags and grading exams because I couldn't do anything else and
occasionally the door would bang and I would twirl around, still slightly
feverish and paranoid. In the afternoon, when the sun dips and hovers but
somehow, this time of year, feels no nearer than noon, Brett came home
to smoke cloves on the porch. My room is clean. My exams are graded.
I have been productive in spite of the virus raging through my body.
I blow into the fire and it blows back at me, a low aching moan. I'll leave 
you to your smoldering logs, Sean says after dropping off native honey
for me and a typewriter for Brett. I wait for things I don't even believe exist.